Monday, 6 February 2012

It is not only a question about what the Anti-Counterfeiting (and much more) Trade Agreement ACTA contains or not, because it is a part of an intellectual property enforcement agenda driven by the European Commission.

Long before popular discontent became the massive confrontation we now see, wiser people than I warned the EU institutions of heading in the wrong direction and of advancing with undue secrecy. Some of them are mentioned in the blog posts I wrote on Grahnlaw about two years ago, and which paint a background picture for the IPR agenda today:

Trade commissioner Karel De Gucht is supported by the commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes and the commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship [no kidding] Viviane Reding. The internal market commissioner Michel Barnier is preparing new and more invasive enforcement measures to please the entertainment industry.

Michael Kennedy

In the well written piece For Your Digital Freedom and Ours, professor Michael Kennedy hopes that the resistance the Poles have inspired in Europe could lead to some sort of common sense aproach from the US administration as well. A short quote about the stakes:

We need legislation that preserves the Internet as a public good and recognizes legitimate concerns over copyright. In particular, we need to recognize and support the new business models coming along with this new technology so that private interests and public goods can be in sync again. The ACTA is better than it was, but it is still not good enough. We also need to be concerned about basic democratic rights in the process.

Is it too much to ask for legitimacy, transparency, responsiveness and a return to the drawing board?

Ralf Grahn

P.S. Between the global issues and the national level, the European Union shapes our digital future and online freedoms. Is your blog already listed among the more than 900 euroblogs aggregated by multilingual Bloggingportal.eu? Are you following the debates which matter for your future?